Weekend Reading: 04/21

This week, I have a couple of fun links, some business/productivity related links, and some sobering links, among others. It’s been a very well-rounded week in my del.icio.us account, a welcome break from a plethora of links about education and gifted education (which often don’t make it here because I like to present a variety). Also, starting this week, I’m adding the ‘Best Thing I’ve Read All Week’, the most highly recommended thing on the list.

Best Thing I’ve Read All Week – Religion/Atheism/Philosophy: Atheist’s Wager
An atheist’s response to Pascal’s Wager. If you’re not familiar with Pascal’s Wager, it goes like this: it is better to ‘bet’ that God exists because there is a chance you may go to heaven, whereas if you believe he doesn’t exist, there is a chance you may go to hell (the Wiki article I already linked has a better explanation). I won’t spoil the atheist response by summarizing it here, but it’s terribly clever and great read.

Offbeat:Google Declares Stephen Colbert As Greatest Living American
Okay, this one is just funny – I’m a big fan of the Colbert Report (and even more so of the Daily Show). During an interview, Colbert was asked what search term he’d like to come up first for on Google (ie, a Google bomb). His massive fanbase has complied, and now Stephen Colbert’s website ColbertNation.com is the first result for “greatest living American”!

Sick: Group Plans to Picket Va. Tech Funerals (CBS News)Sickening. A fundamentalist religious group known for their “God Hates Fags” and “Fag Soldiers” protests plans to picket the funerals of Virginia Tech victims. “…Shirley Phelps-Roper, said the Virginia Tech teachers and students who died on Monday brought their fate upon themselves by not being true Christians. ‘The evidence is they were not Christian. God does not do that to his servants,’ Phelps-Roper said. ‘You don’t need to look any further for evidence those people are in hell.'”

Offbeat/Sociology: Why Are Americans Afraid of Being Naked?
In some areas of Europe, it’s perfectly acceptable to publicly swim, exercise, garden, etc. in the nude – why not in the U.S.? A great, thought provoking article about the prudeishness of the United States, and how nudity should =/= sex.

Productivity: 12 Tips for an Organized Desk
A practical guide to keeping your desk neat and organized for optimal efficiency. Some are more obvious, some are less.

Neurology/Health: When a Brain Forgets Where Memory Is (New York Times)
A great article about “dissociative fugue”…. ie, amnesia. Some people literally just walk out their front doors and forget who they are, only to be found months later wandering around homeless or living another life altogether! It’s not a case of forgetting the memories altogether… it’s a case of forgetting how to access them.

Business: 12 Breeds of Client and How to Work With Them
Advice geared towards freelances, but can be applied to anyone who has to work with multiple clients. Illustrations (and humor!) are included, and despite my lack of experience in the freelance business, I think I can still say that it’s all too true.

Web 2.0/Blogging: Fear of Blogging and Developing Blog Topics
A couple of articles from two different bloggers about blogging itself. The first looks at a few common fears of new bloggers (and how to overcome them), and the second is a great list of sources for blog topics. If you blog (or are thinking of blogging), they’re worth a look.

Intelligence/Psychology: Are You a Scanner?
A ‘scanner’ is a personality type that loves to dabble. How to identify scanners (in others or yourself), tips for, and the history of scanners.

That’s it for this week – as always, links are added daily to my del.icio.us page, which also has its own feed on my blog’s sidebar (to the right).